Greetings from the middle link of the Rodvold chain, better known as Lil.
I was born, I believe, on the George Hayes farm. I was the seventh child born to Mama & Papa. Only two things I recall before we moved east of town. One was when the collie dog Shep came home with the kids and the other was Papa bringing home a new wagon for us kids. I believe we then lived on the Conrad Nelson Farm.
The years of remembering for me is when we moved to the Jarmin farm. There I started to school and continued eight & a half years of my education. I remember so many things during these years. The beautiful grove we grew up in & spent so many happy days in. All those crab apple trees & plum trees & how we used to start eating those apples almost as soon as the blossoms fell off. And all the sheep showers and rhubarb we ate, usually loaded with salt, Mom used to say we had cast iron stomachs & I believe we did.
I loved the big cottonwood trees near the house and so did the squirrels. One thing I recall about these cottonwood trees was the beautiful song that the robins used to sing every nite at sunset.
We all had our tasks to do each day but we hated to do dishes. We would rather clean out the barn. Remember one time we snuck out to the barn and Bern you yelled for us and oh what you said! Do you remember? And I will never forget Bill Jarmin our landlord. How us kids loved to see him. He was always so good to us. Anne, do you remember the night he was showing us the trick with the stove poker? You tried it & you fainted. Man was I scared!
I remember all the Luther League Socials in our yard. How we used to watch out the upstairs windows when we were supposed to be in bed. And all the cream puffs Mom used to make for those socials. No one could make them like Mom could.
Never will forget all the churning of butter in the cellar. Nothing sounded so good to my ears as when the butter came. And then buttermilk grout for supper. As we got older we got to deliver butter to Mom's customers. Mrs. Bergie always used to give us an extra Nickel for candy.
And the winter fun we used to have on Sunday afternoons, with Lady or Nancy pulling all those home made sleds around & around for hours, And do you remember the straw pile by the apple trees? How we would go for a country mile on those scoop shovels from the top of that straw pile after a snow fall.
I remember the cultivator seat we put on a willow tree branch and tied a rope on the end to pull each other up and down. And do you know, Bud, Edie, Bern, Ag, Orp & I drove by that farm in 1967 and that cultivator seat was still on that branch. I wonder if any one else enjoyed it like we did.
I always liked school and we had lots of fun in that one room school house. So much fun walking back & forth to school; always a mob of us. All the good programs we put on for our parents and the last day picnics. Lots of mischief went on in that one room school house. That ceiling was covered with spit wads. But we were a pretty good bunch of kids, I especially liked Parochial school during the month of June. One of our teachers, Borghill Hoven, was one of my favorite teachers.
I started high school in the fall of 1929. In the spring of my freshman year we moved off that farm to a farm north of DeSmet. Phil, Orp & I finished that year staying with Mr. Uglem. In the summers of my high school years I worked at Lawsons Hamburger roadside stand. I enjoyed that very much. My sophomore year I worked for my board & room at Pete Larsons. That year I was elected one of the cheer leaders so I got to attend all the athletic functions. Course I had to work getting the noise out of the kids. But got very good response. I continued being cheer leader in my junior & senior years. I enjoyed my high school years very much and graduated in the spring of 1933.
I went to Rapid City the next year and lived and worked there for three years. Especially enjoyed those years as I was with Ag so much & we had so many good times there & in the Hills.
Came home for a few months and then went to California and was there until November 1946. During these years I worked in the war plants. In 1945 met Merwin who was in the Navy.
In May 1946 we were married and when he got out of the Navy we moved to Ohio. Here we lived for the next six and a half years. Here our two sons, Michael & Gregory, were born. In the spring of 1953 we decided to move back to California & have had a very good life together and now our boys and their wives have blessed us with four beautiful grandchildren who have really enriched our lives to the utmost. We pray for many more happy years together.
Ruth Rodvold Bridges
1977